Sustainable Planning for Brant County

For Earth Week, we would like to share a plan that was prepared by Sustainable Brant as a submission to the Official Plan on consultation with residents throughout the county, over a two year period. The residents come from Paris, Glen Morris, Oakland, St. George, Burford, Scotland, Cainsville, Six Nations, Langford, Onondaga, Mt. Pleasant, South Dumfries, the Airport/Oakhill Settlement Area and Tutela Heights.

We treasure Brant’s agricultural roots, want to preserve its rural nature and communities, and want to protect the environment, while promoting a sustainable economy. Here is a summary of our ideas for the revision of Brant County’s Official Plan.

Protect Farmland: protect our local environment and farmland to ensure the health and quality of life of present and future generations. Include Brant County in the Greenbelt.

Protect our environment: Conserve energy and water, protect our watershedsand reduce our waste.

Protect our cultural heritage and community infrastructure in the towns and in the small farming communities, including schoolhouses and community halls.

Plan for a more sustainable and healthy local economy that builds upon our agricultural economy and natural areas.
• Learn from our past and Brantford’s history of brownfields and restrict development to “clean jobs” that do not pollute our air, water or soil.
• Plan for a post-carbon economy where we reduce our reliance on oil.
• Ensure that all new construction uses low-energy building techniques.
• Foster local and value-added economies where our dollars stay within the community and help other local businesses.
• Foster the development of more business and housing cooperatives to protect our county from the effects of the recession.

Make travel more sustainable.
• Plan sustainable transportation to move people and goods.
• No more new highways on farmland.
• Plan for more walkable communities.
• Promote teleworking, video conferencing and web conferencing, and public transport to reduce the use of cars.

Limit growth to preserve the nature of Brant County.
• Keep new development within the existing urban settlement area boundaries.
• Keep the existing provincially legislated “standstill”/no-build necklace around Brantford. This is our “greenbelt”.

Be fiscally responsible – spend within our means.
• Follow Guelph’s example and reduce the growth numbers.
• Do not privatize our infrastructure, no private-public-partnerships.

Democracy:
• Make county planning documents more accessible and readable.
• Do not restrict the public from making delegations to council.